Crimson
by Honey and Wine
Summary: Work in progress. A room full of bodies, some very weird questions with even weirder answers. This is going to be a bloody, bumpy ride.
1. Early Morning

Officer Shogo Sugimura was especially distracted that morning, when the sun was so weak and feeble it could barely creep its way through the wisps of clouds. He wished he could blame the weather for getting him down. They were deep in a cold snap, or at least as cold as the city ever got. It wasn't snowing, but it felt like it should be. The air was crisp and clean, but cold enough it was painful to breathe. Wisps of steam caught his breath that morning when Officer Sugimura went from the convenience store where he bought coffee every morning to his patrol car. He felt like it was cigarette smoke; like he was the brave but jaded antihero cop in one of the _film noir _movies that he liked to stay up watching on Saturday nights.

Of course, Sugimura's life wasn't as simple as a black and white movie with husky voiced sensual women. No, his life was complex in a simple, everyday way. To begin with, he spent his first fifteen or twenty minutes of the morning rounds brooding about his boss. Ages ago, when Sugimura had begun working at the force, his boss had been a good enough guy; a little older than Sugimura, but friendly with the rookie, an ally in the politics of police-work. Then they had promoted the slimy little cocksucker. Then all of a sudden the asshole was not only higher ranking than Sugimura, rank became _important. _

"Hey there, pal," the weasel-faced moron would say with that stupid city-slicker accent, "I don't mean to pull rank on you or anything, but I'm such a hot-shot down here at headquarters now, I need you to go out on assignments while I sat on my fat-ass doing paperwork and contemplating screwing my secretary on my desk in front of the cheaply framed pictures of my wife and kids. Yeah, you go ahead and do all the manual labor, the dirty work. I have a corner office with blinds now; I don't need to play buddies with you, do I?"

One of these days, Sugimura was going to do something about that guy.

But work wasn't the only thing driving Sugimura to distraction. Oh no, it couldn't be just a bad coworker, now could it? On top of that, he had to have problems with the wife, now didn't he? Yuka Sugimura had been just a hair shy of being a goddess when she was a young, newly wedded girl of 21. She had always had perfect hair, a soft crooked smile, and she hadn't complained at all about her sex life. Fast forward 16 years and one kid, Mrs. Sugimura had lost her girlish figure, her perfect hair, her kind, submissive voice. She had morphed into a mother, a woman with a screeching voice and sagging tits. She was vaguely disgusted with their sex life, although nothing Sugimura tried or offered to try seemed to please her. She spent her days complaining about their house – she had been so proud of it when they bought it 12 years ago – and nagging Sugimura and their 15 year-old son. Somewhere, she turned away from being his loving, sweet wife into being his mother.

What made the situation worse was that Sugimura didn't want a divorce, but he didn't want to be married to this woman either. Yuka, for all her flaws, stuck with him, raised his child, still laughed at his anecdotes about work, even when they were stupid. She looked pretty good with the proper clothes, make-up and the right lighting. True, she wasn't supple and lithe anymore, not like she was when they were married, not like the young, naïve women Sugimura had cheated on her with. But being single? Could he do it? Or could he sink into this pit of middle-age, middle-class, average-ness with his wife, once extraordinary who was now perfectly average herself? Both thoughts were depressing, and Sugimura couldn't decide which he found worse.

That was what was driving him crazy. If he and Yuka were getting a divorce, he could have handled it. If they were going to work out their problems, he could handle that too. But this in between, this gray area where they didn't talk or fuck or fight was just driving him nuts. It's from being a cop for so long, he told himself, I don't like surprises, and I don't like maybes.

About the time Sugimura was sipping at the dregs of his convenience-store coffee, his police radio began to squawk at him. He set down the Styrofoam cup and picked up the plastic paw he had to speak into.

"Sugimura here."

"There's been a call, can you get it?" the distorted voice on the other end recited an address.

"I got it," Sugimura said, hoping this would be something quick.

"It sounds like an accident or something, maybe," the voice informed him.

Maybe, Sugimura thought. Maybe.

The neighborhood Sugimura had been called to was not in a bad part of town, but it was close. The trees were skeletal and dying, and not just because of the cold weather. The houses were cheaply made, and from the window of his car Sugimura could make out the signs of home-repairs, roofs patched, windows broken and sealed with tape. There were cars in almost every driveway this early in the morning, but they were old and cheap cars, fitting companions to the houses. Paired with the overcast sky, it was a sad neighborhood, smelled like desperation frozen in cold, cold that wouldn't even snow yet.

Sugimura pulled up to the designated house, a very much used silver car taking up most of the driveway. Somebody was home. As he stepped out of his own vehicle, a middle-aged man approached him in old paint-stained work clothes, looking pale and concerned. Like he'd seen a ghost.

"You're the one that called?" Sugimura asked the man.

"Yes, sir, I'm the next-door neighbor," the man answered.

"Can you tell me what's going on?" Sugimura asked.

"Kazuo and I were supposed to work on my roof today," the old man began. "We were going to get an early start. When he didn't come over, I called to see if he was up. Nobody answered. I know they're home; it's Kazuo's day off, and his car is there. He wouldn't leave when we had to get up so early. Anyway, I went over there and knocked on the door, but again no one answered. So I went around the back, to look through the sliding glass door and see if Kayoko was up making breakfast or something." The man paused. "I saw … through the glass, I saw a leg."

"A leg?" Sugimura was bored already. Somebody probably just fell down the stairs and hit their head.

"Yeah …" the man looked towards the house. "I just want to make sure everything is ok."

Sugimura nodded, and began to walk up the driveway. He knocked on the door and waited, but sure enough, no answer. After a couple more tries and waiting a few moments, he headed around the house to the back, to see if he could see this leg. On the way there he tried to peek through the windows, but they all had screens and were impenetrable.

The sliding glass door in back of the house looked into the kitchen, which was clean and perfectly in order. Just beyond the small table lodged in the corner of the neat little room Sugimura could see a doorway, and just through that … yes, there was a strip of whiteness there. A leg, its occupant lying on their stomach. Accident, surely.

Sugimura examined the lock on the door. Cheap, of course. Didn't anyone care enough to build these houses decently? Sugimura picked the lock open with a small tool he kept in his belt, barely requiring any effort. It made sense, in an odd way, though. The houses were poor and contained nothing, so why bother to put a nice lock on the door? Let the criminals in, it's not like there was anything to steal.

His police-issue boots squeaking on the linoleum floor, Sugimura wished he could take them off. Not on duty, though. He called out; announcing his presence, but the house was dead, felt dead.

He approached the doorway, looking for the owner of the leg. He flipped the light switch by the doorway.

And that's when Sugimura saw the blood.


	2. Murder Scene

Amon had been told this case was bad. Zaizen mentioned it on the phone, in passing.

"The police say this is the worst case we've seen in a long time." We, like Zaizen ever looked at bodies anymore.

The forensic specialist determined there were three people killed in the living room of that small house. In the end, he determined that by counting the ribcages. But for all the skin and blood and shit and gore on that floor, it could have been 30 people.

Three people were killed. Thus, with about two gallons of blood in each body, there were six gallons of blood splattered on the floor, on the walls, all the way up to the ceiling. Three people meant 30 fingers and toes, six legs, six arms, three heads. Count the ribs, count the teeth, count the vertebrae. Lay the intestines out in a row and marvel how many tubes three bodies can hold. A night ago these were people with memories, with fears, with hopes and dreams and all those other things people create their lives with. In the morning, they were meat scattered on the living room floor, a heap of flesh and coagulated blood and drying fat stacked on the coach were they had once sat together watching TV. That morning was a riot of anatomy, an orgy of body parts, twisted and writhing silently against a backdrop of blood drying reddish-brown on the wallpaper. That morning was the copper-sweet smell of too much blood, the harsh smell of excrement, stomachs ripped open. That morning was errant strands of hair stuck to the wall with a paste of blood and gray matter. That morning knew no animation, no breath of life, no body as a temple. That morning was made for meat.

Amon had seen bad crime scenes, but nothing like this.

Ryuhei Tsukioka, the police's forensic genius, was standing by Amon holding an arm. He waited patiently for Amon to get over the initial shock of seeing three people dismantled and scattered across the room. After a few moments, Amon turned to the man with the appendage.

"This was done by a witch?" Amon asked Tsukioka.

"Well, that's the best explanation anyone can come up with so far," Tsukioka replied, holding the arm up for Amon to examine. "I've been wading through this stuff all morning, and every piece I've looked at has the same pattern. The bones broke cleanly; the skin is stretched, but ripped cleanly. These people were pulled apart. A human could pull a bone out of its socket, could break the smaller ones like this. But a tibia? No human could pull apart a leg, but there are pieces of one by the end-table that have indeed been torn apart."

"Did the neighbors see anyone go in?" Amon asked. "Hear anyone screaming?"

"That's the scary part," said Tsukioka, laying down the arm. "No one saw or heard anything."

"So, someone broke in, killed them, and then dismembered them?"

Tsukioka's face darkened.

"Judging by what I've seen, the mutilation was not postmortem," the snapped off his gloves and started to leave the room, Amon trailing behind him. "I can't be one-hundred percent sure, since I haven't examined any pieces in the lab, but that's what I'd bet on. Cause of death hasn't been accurately determined yet. We're going to take the pieces down to the morgue and try to reassemble them, see if anything strange pops out." Tsukioka gave a weak grin, "As if this isn't strange enough."

Amon stopped, and Tsukioka turned to face him. They had walked to the backyard, where several policemen and the rest of the STN-J's team were milling around, waiting to get as far away from this place as they could. One of the shrubs by the kitchen door smelled very strongly of vomit, and quite a few of the policemen, as well as Haruto Sakaki, were wiping their mouths absently, skin paler than usual. They were all shivering, pulling their coats closer to their bodies, but all would rather stand outside in the middle of winter than go back in that house.

"How much do we know about the victims?" Amon asked, signaling for his team to come closer. They all trudged forward, obviously disgusted at the thought of having to listen to this.

"We haven't had an official identification yet," Tsukioka explained. "But it's safe to assume that the victims are the Inada family. It's their house, they were home, no one has seen them … the paperwork just hasn't been filled out yet." Tsukioka paused. "The police want to get as far away from this one as they can. No one has even interviewed the guy who first spotted the body. They decided to leave it all up to you guys."

Amon nodded, looking displeased. He thanked Tsukioka, and then turned to his team.

"Since we won't be getting the lab results until at least this afternoon, we can try finding out more about the victims this morning." Amon spoke into his communicator, "Michael, have you got the names of the victims?"

"Yes," announced Michael's tinny voice. "Kazuo Inada, Kayoko Inada, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Mitsuko Inada. I have the addresses of the parents' workplaces and the daughter's school, too."

"Very good," Amon hung up, turning back to the group, who were waiting solemnly for their assignments. "Karasuma, I want you to interview the neighbor who found the body. Sakaki, get an official statement from the police officer who made the discovery, and then talk to the other neighbors. Doujima, I want you to go to Kayoko Inada's workplace and find out as much about her as you can. If you have time, find out who her friends were and track them down. Robin, I'll drop you off at Mitsuko Inada's school, so you can do the same thing." Amon paused for a moment. "This is going to be a big case. There's a lot to do, so be efficient. We'll meet at the office this afternoon. Any questions?"

There were none. The team disbanded, quiet and businesslike.

Robin followed Amon to his car, where she settled in beside him in the passenger's seat. She looked a bit pale; a bit tired, but had voiced no objections about her assignment.

"Amon?" she said his name softly, as always, like it was an incantation that would loose its power if voiced over a whisper.

"Yes?"

"Have you ever seen a crime scene that bad before?" she looked at him from the corner of her eyes.

Amon almost sighed. He had told the three youngest, most inexperienced members of the team that it wasn't necessary to look at the intact crime scene itself, since there would be police photographs. He had, though, encouraged them to try, for the sake of professionalism. As he had expected, Sakaki had barely been able to tolerate the sight. Doujima had given up a minute after him, with Robin holding out the longest. Amon remembered it was the first time he had ever seen her flinch at the sight of a body.

"No, never quite that bad," he answered her. "But I've seen similar before." He looked at the girl beside him, who was obviously dealing with shock. "Try to focus on investigating Mitsuko Inada," he told her, "get inside her head. It'll be a distraction, something else to think about."

Robin nodded, her eyes turning to the road ahead. Amon wished he had better advice, that he could offer this stunned, innocent creature something more.

But he knew you don't just get over seeing something like that.

Pulling up to Mitsuko Inada's school, Amon watched Robin get out of his car, gathering her long black skirts around her. Her hands went to her shoulders, curling herself up against the weather.

"Call me when you need a ride back to the office," she told her.

He stayed parked until she had made it into the school, and then he shifted the car to drive and returned to the road.

Amon tried to think about Kazuo Inada, the man that he would have to investigate to solve this crime. Instead, all he could picture was that room, the blood, crimson on pale shrunken skin.

How are any of us going to sleep tonight? he wondered.


	3. Chasing the Inadas

A/N: Just so everyone remembers, this is a murder mystery. Every little detail means something, and they're all going to come into play later. Of course, I might have thrown in some red herrings to throw you off … Also, I know Amon is absent from this chapter. Again, there are reasons for these things. Just bear with me.

* * *

"Sugimura?"

The police officer turned around at the sound of his name.

"Yes?"

He saw the speaker was a really young kid – not more than a couple years older than Sugimura's own son.

"Hi, I'm Haruto Sakaki, from the STN-J. I just need to get your official statement, real quick."

Sugimura had to pause to keep his eyes from bugging out of his head. This _boy _was with the infamous STN-J? Was that why the organization was so secretive, because they were using child labor?

"Yeah," Sugimura said slowly. "Are you old enough to be working on a murder case?"

The boy laughed.

"My boss seems to think so," he said. "Now, to go over your story …"

Dutifully, Sugimura repeated the events of that morning to the boy. He had already gone over this same series of eventsin hishead all morning, so the description was mechanical but detailed, absent of pauses or thought.

"Ok," Sakaki said when Sugimura had finished. "That's all I needed. Thanks for your cooperation."

Sugimura nodded, staring at the boy.

"Say, uh," Sugimura had to stop himself before slipping up and calling Sakaki _son, _"I figured, since I found the bodies and all … I could do more to help."

Sakaki shrugged.

"If we can think of anything you can do, we'll be sure to call."

"Yeah …" Sugimura said carefully. "But I do a lot of experience in police work. I was thinking –,"

"We'll call," Sakaki said, with what Sugimura thought had to be the most annoying, condescending smile imaginable. "Thanks again."

"No problem," Sugimura answered, getting into his car.

Fifteen years on the force, a shitty marriage, a boss that he hated and now life handed him this. A kid half his age was working a murder case as a detective, and probably getting paid three times his salary. A damn little _kid, _who should be out surfing and chasing skirts. Sugimura shook his head, starting his car. Who _were _these STN-J creeps, anyway? Why did they get to take a case this big away from the regular cops, guys who could use the morale boost a big case like this would bring when it was finally closed? Why couldn't he get do to something useful with his life, for once?

Shifting into a higher gear, Sugimura tried to imagine a bunch of fresh-faced, idealistic children with everything to prove and nothing to loose out solving murder mysteries, having wacky adventures. It just wasn't right, he decided.

It just wasn't right.

* * *

Doujima had been pleased to hear that the bakery where Kayoko Inada had worked was only two blocks away. She could walk the distance easily, even in her low high-heels. She set out immediately, not wanting to hang around that house for longer than necessary.

It would be hard to call the walk scenic. The neighborhood was trying to be suburban, and not quite succeeding. The poverty of these houses was like a physical presence. She could almost see a thin, shadowy figure wrapping fingers around these little desperate homes, stripping off the paint and the hope, exposing only the worst. Grass died under bony feet, cars broke under the weight of a life that wasn't asked for. Darkened windows felt bad, light was almost worse, the idea that people still went on through rent, electric bills, medical expenses.

So, Doujima thought, this was what Kayoko Inada saw every morning.

The bakery was on a street corner, small and shabby, but cheerful enough from the outside. A large, colorful sign advertised gourmet coffee and fresh, homemade pastries. Doujima pulled open the glass door and walked inside, greeted by the stores warmth and the smell of coffee, baking, sugar, comfort. The store was clean and cheerful. Behind a large glass counter two sullen, bored teenagers stood serving the morning customers, ringing up orders on the register, fetching coffee and pastries. Off to the side Doujima could spy a woman of about thirty, who was busy pouring powdered sugar over a pan of freshly baked donuts. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her body language tired and sad. It was this woman Doujima decided to start with.

"Excuse me, ma'am," she said, approaching the woman. "I'm investigating the death of Kayoko Inada. I understand she worked here. May I ask you a few questions?"

The woman looked up from her work, pained.

"I'm not the manager," she said. "But if it'll help, I'd be happy to."

She picked up a napkin and a sugared donut, and lead Doujima to one of the small tables by the windows of the shop. She placed the donut on the napkin in front of Doujima.

"Please," she said, gesturing towards the confection, "compliments of the house."

Doujima's appetite was diminished from the murder scene that morning, but she thought it would be rude not to accept the treat. When she tore off a piece and bit into it, she found it was absolutely delicious, and she was in fact hungrier than she imagined she would be.

"May I ask your name?" Doujima asked, after she was finished chewing.

"Hirono Yamashi," the woman replied. "I'm – I was Kayoko's cousin."

"I see," Doujima nodded, taking another bite. "How long did Kayoko work here?"

"Off and on, since she was probably fourteen or fifteen," Hirono answered, fiddling with the string of her apron absently. "Our family has owned this business for years, so everybody that's related to us can get a job. We all work here at some point or another."

"Was she a good employee? Did she ever have any problems?"

"She never had any problems," Hirono looked out the window now, looking everywhere but at directly at Doujima. "Kayoko was very smart, even though she didn't really do anything with her life."

"What do you mean; she didn't do anything with her life?"

Hirono sighed.

"When Kayoko was younger, she wanted to be a singer. She has – had a really beautiful voice. Of course, once Kazuo got her pregnant, she couldn't exactly have a career in show business. I think it hurt her, that she never got to live out her dream," Hirono sighed again. "But what can you do?"

Doujima nodded, killing off her donut with a big bite.

"Did Kayoko have any enemies?" she asked around the food.

"No," Hirono shook her head. "She was a really sweet person. Nobody ever fought with her or anything, except Mitsuko, her daughter. We all liked it when Kayoko was working, because she was so good at decorating cakes, it was like an art --,"

"Wait --," Doujima interrupted. "Why did Kayoko and Mitsuko fight?"

"Sorry, I suppose I was rambling," Hirono muttered, and then spoke up. "It was just because Mitsuko was getting older. She was going through a rebellious phase, and Kayoko didn't know how to handle her."

Doujima nodded.

"So … there's no reason you could think of why anyone would want to hurt Kayoko?"

Now Hirono looked Doujima in the eyes.

"No, not a single reason," she declared.

"What about the other members of her family?" Doujima asked.

"Well … Kazuo was kind of a jerk, sometimes. I guess he was a real tough guy to work with. His employees all hated him, I hear," Hirono's eyes were focusing out the window again. "I guess Kayoko didn't approve of the kids Mitsuko was hanging around with, but it didn't sound to me like they did anything bad," Hirono shrugged. "None of that seems worthy of … well, you know."

Doujima absently wiped off the table with the napkin, her other hand reaching for her purse.

"Thank you for your time, Ms. Yamashi. You've been very helpful," she opened her purse. "I'll give you my card, in case you or anyone else in your family can think of anything that would help the case." Doujima handed the card to Hirono, who looked at it for a long time. "And thank you very much for the donut, it was delicious."

"Yes," said Hirono Yamashi very quietly, tears filling up her eyes. "They are good, aren't they?"

* * *

Robin found the school that Mitsuko Inada had attended drab and lifeless, the walls and floors devoid of color or cheer. The lady at the front desk had given Robin a visitor's pass, and a matronly school administrator had provided her with a list of Mitsuko's teachers. The administrator lead Robin to the classes one by one as she interviewed teachers, standing a little too close with a little too much interest in her eyes. The whole time, Robin could feel the woman's determination to defend the school, to keep up the reputation of the staff.

The first three interviews were uneventful. The teachers had not been especially close to Mitsuko Inada, and knew little of her personality. They revealed a little; she was a good student, not the best in her class, but good enough to be impressive. She had been shy, mostly, especially around her teachers, but she had a few friends that she was frequently quite talkative with. The teachers dutifully named the students she had known, pointing out that though they were rebellious and occasionally mischievous youngsters, none were really that much trouble.

Robin had nodded politely and taken down the students' names, wondering if the team would be disappointed in her if she didn't find anything useful. As she was trying to decide how she would report that her task had failed, the administrator led her into Mitsuko's fourth class, art.

The administrator pulled the frazzled-looking art teacher away from her class, hushing the protests that she had a job to do.

"Ms. Kitano," the administrator said gently. "This is Robin Sena. She's investigating the death of Mitsuko Inada."

"Oh!" the woman cried softly. "Yes, I understand." She turned to Robin. "How may I help you, dear?"

"If you could tell me about her," Robin began. "Or if you have any of her artwork I could see …"

"Yes, of course," Ms. Kitano nodded, gesturing toward the classroom, "I have a painting of hers in here, if you could just follow me."

Robin obliged with the administrator so close behind her the woman was stepping on the hem of her dress.

The classroom was slightly better than the rest of the school. Paintings adorned the wall, most amateurish and quickly executed, but some with talent shining through. It smelled of a large number of people in a small space, of paint and talent. Scattered at randomly placed work tables were students completing collages, magazines and clippings and glue crowding the tables. Some were chatting and joking as they worked, others bent close to their posters in intense concentration. Only a few looked up as Robin entered, and none seemed to care. Examining them quickly, Robin wondered if she would have been one of these children, had life gone a different way. Would she have worn glitter makeup like these girls, or focused more on boys than her assignment? Would she have fit in here, in another life?

Ms. Kitano led Robin to a large cabinet at the back of the room. She shuffled through canvases for a few moments, until she selected the one she wanted. As she pulled the canvas from the stack, Robin saw Mitsuko Inada's name scrawled on the back.

"This was her painting final from last semester," Ms. Kitano explained. "I thought it was quite well-executed, and interesting."

Robin examined the painting, her brow furrowing.

The painting was mostly a field of black. In one corner was a girl, painted in whites and grays. In the center of her chest was a large, gaping hole, done in bright red. The girl's face was plain, staring at her heart like it was supposed to be lying in a pool of blood. Next to the girl was a pool of blood, with a heart resting in the center of the pool. At the top of the canvas was a poem, done in careful calligraphy:

_You ripped your heart out with safety scissors/ __And the blood dripped down your chest/ __Coagulating like rubies/ __Sealing in the breath I held/ __Deep in my chest like a dull blade/ __You said you wanted to see my heart beating/ __I closed my eyes, took a breath/ __And pain sang in my veins/ __Like a sharp knife through glass/ __While we sat back and watched with quiet awe/ __As our blood and mixed and dried together on the floor_

Robin read the poem twice, her brow furrowing as she stared at the words, looking at the phrasing, the vocabulary, the organization.

"May I ask your interpretation?" Robin at last asked Ms. Kitano.

"Well," the woman began. "It's almost a love poem. Look at the last line. _As our blood mixed and dried together on the floor. _Or the imagery, the heart. Of course, she isn't talking about your usual romance, but that's the feeling I got here."

Robin nodded, her eyes scanning the canvas again.

"May I take this?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," Ms. Kitano said, nudging the painting toward Robin.

"And one more thing, Ms. Kitano?" Robin looked up.

"Yes, dear?"

"Can you tell me the name of Mitsuko's boyfriend?"

* * *

Karasuma left the neighbors house knowing not much more than she had when she walked in. The man's story had been consistent with every re-telling. He even had a good memory for details. Karasuma suspected no foul play on his part.

She had asked a little after the family. From the neighbor's description, they didn't sound like a particularly special family. Kazuo Inada had frequently had disagreements with his coworkers, but that was only to be expected, considering his fierce perfectionism. The disagreements never amounted to anything, other than a few disgruntled employees quitting. The woman and the girl had no outstanding characteristics; at least, nothing Karasuma could see that would lead to their murders.

A bit tired, she stood in the front yard of the Inada's house, wrapping her coat tight around her shivering frame. She shook, not entirely from the weather.

Amon hadn't said that she had to read the crime scene. He hadn't said it – but he'd want her to.

The thought brought back memories, things that Karasuma usually only thought about late at night.

_-- Wild eyes peered out of a corner, piercing through Karasuma's flashlight beam. They were glassy and red-rimmed. The face around it was crossed with scratches. The hair that framed it was dirty and ripped out in clumps. Hands shook, held out in the air like diseased things._

_"I see things," rasped a voice. "I see things I don't want to --,"_

_They hadn't let that voice speak for long. They drugged the suspect, dragged him away for the Factory to collect. They gave her sympathetic looks, but they didn't say –_

_He had the same power._

_-- There were other times:_

_The girl that had been raped and killed, parts of her body divided up between sticky black trash bags and thrown in the trunk of her murderer's car, the mutilated skin of her tiny body screaming out, remembering pain long after she was dead …_

_There were times when she felt the killers, the ones who loved the sensation of flesh and bone parting, of blood pouring in a rush over their hands. She felt their desire, love, insanity, and their need for this blood-drenched ambiance … how human they felt, how human they were …_

_She learned sorrow through blood-stains on sheets; she learned anger from the crimson on the walls, fear through razors, relief in gravestones. She felt it all, including her own sadness when it all became a blur, all the emotions contained in a splatter of blood on white skin …_

Karasuma didn't want to go in that house again. She felt enough of the atmosphere the first time, tickling her fingers, teasing her to come out and lose her mind to blood. She could. Any day, any time, her power could overwhelm her, take her mind away from her.

The body parts had been cleared away. That was a relief. Touching flesh was always strongest, and Karasuma had learned that with these types of cases, it was always a bad idea. It was better to stick with bloodstains – although they too could be overpowering.

She knelt down, her knee resting on the clean tile of the kitchen. The gore had been contained to the living room, which lay out in front of her like the aftermath of a diorama of a horror novel. It felt safer being mostly in the kitchen.

Cautiously, Karasuma lowered her hand to the floor, still tacky with coagulating blood.

It was Mitsuko Inada's blood she touched, Mitsuko Inada's dead eyes she saw through.

There was surprise there, and a lot of fear. She felt the girl thinking about a boy, loving him, wanting his protection. Then she felt just fear, a primitive, all-encompassing need to escape, to flee. She felt the girl's horror that she couldn't get away fast enough. She felt some invisible barrier, something Mitsuko's hands clawed at. She felt pain, fingernails peeling back, fingers twisting in horrible angles. She felt slices of pain, being ripped apart ….

Karasuma jerked her hand back, staring at her rust-coated palm.

No clue. Just fear.

Slowly, she rose, moved to the kitchen sink to wash her hand off. Even though she couldn't see the traces of blood swirling down into the drain, she could feel it.

She knew what color she would dream in.


	4. Night Life

Ryuhei Tsukioka was elbow-deep in gore, and that was the way he liked it.

The first time he had taken a human anatomy course, he had known what he wanted to do with his life. Muscle, bone, organs, blood, it fit together like a puzzle. It could be dismantled. It could be reassembled, though not completely in the same way. That didn't matter to Tsukioka, though; he liked parts of humans better than humans themselves. All his real friends smelled of formaldehyde, cut with a Y-shape from breastbone to pubic bone, then stitched back up with large, heavy black stitches. Their organs were carefully removed, catalogued, and then thrown back a jumble. They were silent, drained flesh, animation not included. Tsukioka liked it that way.

He was counting parts, cataloguing them. Three people died, he figured that out early on. He sent scraps of different limbs to the genetics lab, for official confirmation. Now Tsukioka was more concerned about piecing the bodies back together, figuring out what toes belonged on what foot, what shredded torso was whose. He didn't worry much about organs; those were set aside, to be inspected later. No one minded if those didn't get to the funeral.

Tsukioka's method at this stage was simple. He would select a body part, examine it to see if anything was out of place, and then put it in one of three piles: father, mother, daughter, and unknown. The unknown piled was the mother and the daughter, since they were both small and some of their parts could be interchangeable. He probably wouldn't have DNA testing done on most of these parts – not unless it was absolutely necessary. It's not like anyone would care.

It was arms that started giving Tsukioka a headache. He found the man's well enough, but then when he got to the women, a slight problem arose. Namely, two women should have four arms. The pile only had three. That was the kind of thing that was either an important clue, or somebody's huge screw up. Either way, it meant a phone call, which was exactly the kind of thing Tsukioka hated.

"Yeah?" Tsukioka bulked at the surly voice coming over the phone.

"Are you guys finished bringing the evidence to the lab?"

"Yes, we finished this morning."

"Hmm. I'm missing an arm."

"Can't help you there."

"It was just you two in the ambulance?"

"That cop followed."

"The cop?"

"Sugimura. He was the first one on the scene."

"Was he in the ambulance?"

"Well, we let him watch the truck while we got lunch."

"You _what?_"

"We were hungry."

Tsukioka scoffed and hung up the phone. He then began rifling through his pockets, looking for the STN-J's phone number.

* * *

When Amon had been six years old, he came home from the first day of the school year with a bloody nose and half his teeth missing. His mother had looked at him for a long time, standing in the doorway, unshed tears making his eyes glassy, the blood around his nose bubbling when he breathed. Then she took him into the bathroom to clean him up, and told him her philosophy about humanity.

"Honey," she said, carefully scrubbing his bruised skin with a washcloth, "People aren't always as nice as they should be. Sometimes you have to take the punches and not say anything. Go the high road. Complaining won't get you anywhere. Just don't let them see you cry and always be the nice guy – you'll win in the end."

Fast-forward nineteen years.

Amon was winding a thin metal chain over his knuckles, standing by the window of a pay-by-the-hour motel waiting for a sleek, black car to appear in the parking lot. He had removed his coat and jacket, making him look much less professional and feel much more naked than he was willing to deal with at the office. But there were some parts of the job that were necessary, no matter how much he hated them.

Down the street, past rows of blinking neon signs – most of which were missing a few key tubes – Amon thought he spied Zaizen's car.

Five years ago Zaizen had made Amon stay late after work. While the old man made a few irrelevant phone calls and piddled around at his desk, Amon stood in the corner of the office mentally replaying his hunting performances and wondering what he could have done that he could have gotten fired for. After wasting a good half-hour or so torturing the hunter, Zaizen looked up.

"Ok, let's go for a drive," he said, fetching his keys from his coat pocket.

They drove to this same motel. Sitting in the room waiting was Junichiro, and older man who had been a hunter at the STN-J at the time and a man about Amon's age who was tied to a chair and gagged. Amon surveyed this scene with shock, his bloodstream suddenly full of adrenaline and his mind racing with questions.

"We're going to show you some of the perks of the job," Zaizen explained.

A mere three minutes later Amon was taking his first swing at the man tied to the chair.

Fast-forward.

The car that drove by was not Zaizen's. Amon, his hands wrapped appropriately to the job he had to do tonight, began trying to fiddle with his cell-phone using his bound hand. After some awkward punching of wrong buttons and a glance at the clock to calculate how much time he had left, he successfully dialed Touko's number.

"Hello?" she answered, sounding half-bored.

"It's me," Amon informed her, reminding himself not to use his work voice with his girlfriend.

"Hi," Touko perked up now. "I haven't heard from you in a while. How are you doing, Amon?"

"I'm ok," he told her. "I'm doing some work for your father tonight."

"Oh." Bad tone. "Maybe --,"

"I don't think so."

"Oh … Amon?"

"Yes?"

"How long will this go on? You hate doing this shit for my father."

Amon sighed.

"I don't know … I'm not the one that makes the executive decisions."

"But he listens to you --,"

"He hates me, Touko," Amon was glancing back and forth between the clock and the window, closely examining every sleek black car that drove by. "You know how much he hates me – why he makes me do all this extra shit."

"Look, I can talk to him."

Silence on the line.

"I'm sorry; I shouldn't have called right now …"

"No, we should do something this weekend. It's about time …"

"Ok."

"I'll meet you at Harry's?"

"Yes."

"Alright then. Take care." Touko hesitated a moment before she hung up.

Fast-forward twelve minutes.

Amon was hitting police officer Shogo Sugimura in the mouth with the fist he had bound with the metal chain. Zaizen stood back against the wall, letting Amon play bad cop. He smoked a cigar and ignored Amon's pointed looks between punches, _May I stop now?_

"Alright," he said after his cigar had burned a third of the way to the end and Sugimura was properly bloody. "I'll take it from here." Amon back away. "Now, Shogo, do you know why we're here?"

Sugimura sputtered, blood and chips of teeth getting in the way of his words.

"I think you know why we're here. Or maybe Amon could refresh your memory a little …"

"No!" Sugimura managed. "I didn' do 'ny thin'."

"Amon, hit him, please."

Amon obliged. He felt the cartilage in Sugimura's nose pop out of place, knew that his skin was sliding out of place and catching in his chain. Sugimura tried to lean out of the punch, which only succeeded in making his skin tear more when Amon pulled his fist back. The cop's face was becoming a mask of blood, his nose barely a ghost of what it had been in its original form.

"Now, Mr. Sugimura," Zaizen continued in his oh-so-reasonable-and-self-assured tone, "why did you feel it was necessary to tamper with evidence?"

Sugimura didn't respond at first, except for a series of gasps and near whimpers. He was having difficulty making his mouth work for him. He stared at Zaizen, his eyes begging for a moment of composure. Zaizen granted this, waiting for the cop to learn how to speak again and fiddling with his cigar.

"I --," Sugimura at lost last managed. "Police … should've … investigated … I found the … bodies." He stopped to hack up a gob of blood.

"So, you wanted to investigate the case, since you found the bodies." Here Zaizen began pacing the room like any good television detective who just solved a big case and is now explaining his shocking discovery should. "Let me guess. You hate your job as a two-bit cop that nobody gives a fuck about. This was obviously a case that had potential for media coverage and a big raise. Never mind the fact that you have no experience in homicide, let alone homicide of this nature. Never mind the fact that you would only get yourself killed in this kind of investigation. Never mind that even if we did allow you to help us – and we wouldn't, you know – you'd only distract our more qualified detectives with your pitiful lack of knowledge about homicide and your absolute ineptness. Am I right?"

Sugimura nodded, his blood-mask defeated.

"But instead of channeling this desire for a little recognition into your regular job, you snuck into the forensics lab, stole a few limbs – blatantly disrespecting the dead, as you dumped the aforementioned limbs in a dumpster nearby – and left, well aware of the fact that your petty actions did no good, and would only result in a minor inconvenience to us and a severe facial deformity for you. Am I right?"

Again, Sugimura looked down ashamed and nodded.

"I'm always right," Zaizen observed, heading toward the door. On his way out, he turned back to Amon. "Give him a little more, just to remember us by. Then you can dump him by the bar over there. I'll write off the room as a business expense." His gaze turned to the lump of bloody flesh that was Sugimura. "Honestly, Officer, you really should stop breaking up barroom brawls. At your age you'll only get hurt." He turned back to Amon. "Enjoy your car."

At that moment, if Amon had had a gun in his hand, he would have shot Zaizen. Instead, he turned his energy against Sugimura.

Rewind.

The first time Amon ever punched someone he was nine years old. It was one of his first group homes (orphanages, they used to call them orphanages) and he was still sick, hurt, bruised from his mother's death. He was hiding in a corner during lunch, trying to go n unnoticed. A group of boys approached him, asked him what the hell kind of shoes he was wearing. By the time they pulled Amon off the boy, his jaw was broken. Amon got a reputation as being a bully, a psychopath, but he didn't touch anyone in that home again. He didn't have to touch anyone after that – they were afraid of him. He was afraid of himself.

Some things never change.

Fast-forward.

Amon wrapped Sugimura up in his trench coat, because he didn't want the cop to bleed on his car. He was only going to drive him down the street, but there was no way Sugimura was going to walk, being unconscious and all. The man's breathing was shaky, high-pitched and broken because of the nose. God, to be the doctor that fixed that nose.

Zaizen had instructed Amon to leave Sugimura by a bar. Amon did just that, pulling up by the shabby building and tossing Sugimura out on the sidewalk. He leaned the officer against the wall, looking for all the world like any other wino, and got in his car, shifting it into drive. He looked back, briefly, and thought about how cold it was. Surely, that blood would freeze to his face.

How much skin would Sugimura lose tonight? How much cartilage? How much bone? How much can anyone lose in one night?

Amon tried not to think about snow as he drove away.


End file.
